Keeping Track of DMAC



Visualizing Influence Across Space and Time


Trey Conatser

analysis i




The graphic below shows (1) intervals for institutions that have sent participants to more than one DMAC Institute and (2) spans for institutions that have sent more than one participant to the DMAC Institute (respectively: 25% and 35% of total participating institutions). If an institution sent participants to more than one DMAC Institute, it sent them with an average interval of 2.16 years if Ohio State's numbers are excluded from the data. Institutions that sent participants to two DMAC Institutes did so with an average interval of 3.11 years, and institutions that sent participants to three DMAC Institutes did so with an average interval of 2.53 years. If an institution sent a total of two participants to DMAC, they attended over an average span of 2.45 years, or one person every 1.23 years. If an institution sent a total of three participants to DMAC, they attended over an average span of 5.1 years, or one person every 1.7 years. The average spans account for cases in which multiple participants from the same institution attended DMAC at the same time.

Not enough institutions have sent participants to more than three DMAC Institutes, nor have enough institutions sent more than three participants to DMAC, to constitute a meaningful data set in either case. Overall, these numbers indicate a mild rotation even among the participating institutions most familiar to DMAC, perhaps indicating both the limitations of institutional resources and the pace at which word of DMAC (and its benefits) spreads within a department, college, or institution. The latter resonates with the pace of the academic calendar, especially considering that projects or curricula developed out of DMAC typically take at least one or two terms to come to fruition.


infographic of intervals and spans of multi-year attendance of participants from the same institution